Part 2

It has seemed to me interesting and necessary to add to this volume an ethnographical map, which shows what were the indigenous tribes which occupied the country described by Schmidt, and the places in which the Guaraní family lived in that part of the province of Rio de la Plata, colonised in those days by the Spaniards. This map also shows, for the first time in the history of cartography, the demarcation of this same province entrusted by the King of Spain to his Adelantados, or governors, and the route opened by Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca on his journey from the island of Santa Catalina to Asuncion, on the Paraguai.

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The name of Rio de la Plata, given by the King of Spain to a territory so vast, and differing so widely now from what it was at the time of the conquest, creates some confusion and uncertainty in the mind of the reader of the events of that period. This can only be removed by a map which shows clearly what territories were held by the Spanish and Portuguese by virtue of the treaty of Tordesillas. Those who are cognisant of it are but few in number. When speaking or writing of the conquest of America, it is generally believed that the only title upon which were based the conquests of Spain and Portugal was the famous Papal Bull of partition of the Ocean, of 1493. Few modern authors take into consideration that this Bull was amended, upon the petition of the King of Portugal, by the above-mentioned treaty, signed by both Powers in 1494, augmenting the portion assigned to the Portuguese in the partition made between them of the continent of America. The arc of meridian fixed by this treaty as a dividing line, which gave rise, owing to the ignorance of that age, to so many diplomatic congresses and interminable controversies, may now be traced by any student of elementary mathematics. This line is shown on the accompanying map, and runs along the meridian of 47° 32′ 56″ west of Greenwich. The coast of the South American continent between the equator and the vicinity of the Tropic of Capricorn describes a great curve, closed on the west by the aforesaid dividing line, which enters the sea a little south of San Vicente, or Santos. West of this line were the Spanish possessions. A clear understanding on this point removes the confusion occurring at the present day, when the situation of affairs has undergone so marked a change, and explains how it is that Don Pedro de Mendoza, Alvar Nuñez, and Hans Stade remained at points of the coast called of Brazil, mentioned by those travellers; and how Alvar Nuñez, without leaving the province under his jurisdiction and command, marched through Spanish territory, from Santa Catalina, across the whole of Guaira, or province of Paraná, to Asuncion on the Paraguai. The name "Brazil", or "tierra del Brasil", at that time referred only to the part of the continent producing the dyewood so-called. Nearly two centuries later the Portuguese advanced towards the south, and the name "Brazil" then covered the new possessions they were acquiring, thus introducing the confusion to which I have referred.

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_The Voyage of Schmidt_ went through several editions, all incorrect, and rendered more so by the so-called elucidations and notes by their early editors. It was translated and published in Latin, English, Spanish, and other languages. These translations, however, were not made directly from the German, in which it was written, and thus the inaccuracies contained in the original were increased as they were turned into other idioms by persons who had no knowledge of the history, nor the slightest notion of the language spoken by the natives of America.

The first translation was done into Latin by Professor Gotard Arthus, for Theodore de Bry's _Collection of Voyages_, 1597; and when Levinus Hulsius prepared his collection, in 1599, he found so many defects in it, that, instead of adopting it, he preferred translating it afresh. This version, in which there are many alterations and suppressions of the original text, must in justice be described as not less defective than the preceding one, without, however, being quite so bad. The Latin version of Hulsius served for the subsequent translations into modern languages--for instance, for that inserted by Purchas in his _Pilgrims_.

From the same collection of Hulsius the work of Schmidt was translated from Latin into Spanish by Dr. Andreas Gonzalez de Barcia, and published with his insignificant and incorrect notes in Madrid, 1737, in his _Coleccion de Historiadores Primitivos de las Indias Occidentales_. This is the version reproduced at Buenos Ayres a century later by Don Pedro de Angelis, compiler and editor of the manuscripts of the Argentine canon, Don Saturnino Segurola.

The translation now published by the Hakluyt Society, done directly from the original German, has the merit of presenting the work genuine and entire as it left the author's hands. And as he was led into many errors of fact, proper names, geography, and chronology, the Society has done me the honour to ask me to explain them by notes and this brief Introduction.

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The expedition of Don Pedro de Mendoza to the Rio de la Plata, and all the events referred to by Ulrich Schmidt, belong to the epoch of Charles V, Emperor of Germany and King of Spain. Although he was the son of a Spanish prince, this monarch was born at Ghent, and had been educated by Flemings. His ministers, his counsellors, the bankers who supplied him with the funds for his wars, were Flemings. Great was the favour enjoyed in Spain and Portugal by those very wealthy bankers and merchants, Fugger and Welzer of Augsburg, and Erasmus Schetzen of Antwerp. The first two had opened branches of their business at Seville, the centre at that time of trade with America, and the third had done the same at Lisbon, the metropolis of the Portuguese colonies in the Indies. The house of Erasmus Schetzen, as Hans Stade tells us, had sugar factories in the recently colonised captaincy of San Vicente, since converted into the province of San Pablo. One of his agents, Peter Rosel, had established himself there, and had acquired, in the name of Erasmus, the great factory established by the grantee, Captain-Major Martin Affonso de Souza, together with other partners.[3] Charles V had made a gift of the whole province of Caracas to the bankers Welzer, and the affairs of the Fuggers were so vast that the family name was adopted into the Castilian vernacular as _fucar_, explained by the dictionary of the language to signify a person of great wealth.

[3] Fray Gaspar da Madre de Deos, _Memorias para a historia da Capitania de S. Vicente_, 1797.

Charles V had inaugurated his reign by showing his partiality for the Flemings, by whom he was surrounded, bestowing on the Baron de la Bresa, his counsellor and majordomo mayor, the first contract for the exclusive privilege of introducing negro slaves into the West Indies, against the advice of his Spanish counsellors, who rejected the project of the famous protector of the Indians, Bartholomé de las Casas.[4] These favours shown to the Flemings gave rise to that picturesque phrase of Pedro Martyr de Anghiera, that the Flemings had gone with Charles V to Spain to destroy the vine after having gathered the vintage.[5]

[4] Antonio de Herrera, _Historia General de los Hechos de los Castellanos, etc._, Década 2, Libro 2, cap. 20; Quintana, _Vida de las Casas_.

[5] P. Martyr, _Opus Epistolarum_, carta 703.

This explains how the Spanish Government, exclusive and jealous of all foreign interference in its affairs in the Indies, allowed Germans and Flemings, with their vessels, their merchandise, and their men, to take part in such considerable numbers in the expedition of Don Pedro de Mendoza. The Flemings were at that time as much Charles's subjects as the Spaniards, and the owners of the ships in which Schmidt and his countrymen sailed, were bankers--allies and favourites of the young Emperor.

It appears that Schmidt was not enlisted among the soldiers of Mendoza, but came as an _employé_ of the house of Welzer and Niedhart, who owned the vessel which took him. Its factor was the Fleming Heinrich Paine, and it was manned by eighty Germans. The cargo was destined to exchange for the silver which Sebastian Cabot, after his recent voyage of discovery, had made it believed in Spain, abounded among the Indians he had encountered on the Paraguai. The Rio de Solis then took the name of Rio de la Plata, and it was this magic word that raised the desires of so many in Spain to take part in the expedition of Don Pedro de Mendoza, that it was necessary to close the lists of applicants and hasten the departure of the armada, in order to calm the fever of emigration which prevailed on this occasion among persons desirous of making their fortunes rapidly. This expedition, as the historian Fernandez de Oviedo, who saw it sail from Seville, expressed it, "was a company fit to make a goodly show in Cæsar's army and in any part of the world."

Don Pedro de Mendoza began by establishing himself in the port of Los Patos, at the southern extremity of the island of Santa Catalina, which was included in his jurisdiction, as may be seen on the accompanying map. He then passed to the Rio de la Plata, and, on the 11th June 1535, laid the foundations of the city of Santa Maria de Buenos Aires. Soon afterwards he nominated as his second in command his intimate friend, Juan de Ayolas, and sent him with a detachment to explore the Rio Paraná, and open a road by means of this river to the Pacific Ocean, which was the advance or front limit of his province.

The brigantines, or little feluccas in which the explorer Ayolas set forth, were under the orders of the Biscayan, Domingo Martinez de Irala, and in his company went Schmidt, but it is unknown in what character. In his book he acquaints us with the events that happened to that expedition, and all those in which he took part, almost always in the company of his captain, Irala, with whose fortunes he linked his own from the beginning. Our only authority for this statement is the adventurer himself who has given his name to the book. I know of no document mentioning Schmidt, nor is he noticed by the chronicler Francisco Lopez de Gomara, by his successor, Antonio de Herrera, in his history of the Indies, or by Ruy Diaz de Guzman, himself born on the Paraguai, a grandson of Domingo Martinez de Irala, or, finally, by Alvar Nuñez in his _Commentaries_.

Schmidt relates that he was present at the foundation of Buenos Aires and its desertion six years afterwards, by order of Irala, who possessed himself of the command after the deaths of Don Pedro de Mendoza and his lieutenant Ayolas. Schmidt was also present at the events which took place during the governorship of the second Adelantado, Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca, from 1541 to 1544. He assisted at his violent overthrow and deportation under the direction of Irala, made all the journeys of exploration which, starting from Asuncion, ascended the Rio Paraguai to Matto Grosso, and explored all the country of the Cheriguanos, now known by the name of Moxos and Chiquitos, to the confines of Peru. He remained with Irala till the arrival on the Atlantic coast of the expedition of the Adelantado Sanabria, with whom Hans Stade sailed to America.

At the end of twenty years of travels and strange adventures, of combats with Indians, of anarchy, poverty, and disorder among the conquerors of Paraguai, when Domingo de Irala, by force of audacity and machiavelism, had definitely possessed himself of the government of this unfortunate colony, obtaining, a short while afterwards, the royal title of Governor, his faithful and inseparable companion Schmidt received a letter from the banker Niedhart, transmitted to him from Seville by the agent there of the wealthy Fugger, in which he begged him to return to Antwerp. Schmidt obtained leave of absence from his chief, set out on his journey, with six deserters and twenty of his Indian slaves, by the rivers Paraguai and Paraná to the river Iguazú, and thence crossed the province of Guaira by the route opened by Alvar Nuñez, arriving at the Portuguese colony of San Vicente. Here he met with the agent of Erasmus Schetzen, who gave him a passage to Lisbon in a vessel belonging to his principal, which was laden with a cargo of sugar and brazil wood. Schmidt landed at Antwerp on the 25th January 1554, as I have already said.

Hans Stade was a prisoner of the Tapiis, or Tupis, in the immediate vicinity of San Vicente, when Schmidt passed that way on his homeward journey, and only succeeded in obtaining his liberty one year later, embarking at Rio de Janeiro on one of the French ships which trafficked with the Indians occupying that magnificent bay. His adventures during his captivity were published at Marburg in 1557. It is very strange, therefore, that Schmidt should not make the slightest mention of his countryman, though he also was acquainted with Peter Rosel, agent of Erasmus Schetzen, in the Portuguese colony. It would seem most natural that they should have spoken on the misfortunes that had befallen Stade, and on the various fruitless efforts made to rescue him from captivity, and as to the means to be employed in order to restore him to his country. Not a word of all this do we find in Schmidt's narrative.

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The voyage of Ulrich Schmidt to the Rio de la Plata was published, as we have seen, at Frankfort-on-Maine in 1567, in the collection of Sebastian Franck, wherein also appeared for the second time that of Stade, side by side with his countryman Schmidt's. This proves the interest taken in these narratives of travel in those days of theological controversies and religious wars, when the French Protestants were trying to set foot in Brazil, while Villegaignon, under the protection of Coligny, was taking possession of the port of Rio de Janeiro, one year after the abdication of Charles V and the accession to the throne of the sombre Philip II, whose tyranny became very soon insupportable in the Low Countries, which fell under his dominion by inheritance from his father.

The publication of these travels answered to the propaganda against Spain and the religious principles her soldiers were taking to the New World. The work of Stade had been written by Dr. Johann Dryandri, Professor of the University of Marburg, the centre of the ideas of Luther. That of Schmidt was adopted and published by his countryman, Sebastian Franck, who was a vehement Anabaptist, and by the Flemings de Bry and his friend Hulsius, one of the most active advocates of Church Reform, expelled from Ghent, his native place, by decree of the King of Spain during the most critical period of the struggle maintained by the Flemings for their national independence and their religious beliefs.[6]

[6] J. Asher, _Bibliographical Essay on the Collection of Voyages and Travels edited and printed by Levinus Hulsius_.

In those times there existed no periodical press or newspaper. The Spanish Government did not expose to the criticism of the world its colonial policy; silence was its inviolable rule. Availing himself of the right of his own defence, the Adelantado, Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca, deposed and accused by Irala and his party, had published, as we have seen, the narrative of his Government of the Rio de la Plata. Immediately afterwards there appeared in Germany the book of Ulrich Schmidt, containing the charges against Alvar Nuñez and the defence of the conduct of his enemy. These conquerors of Paraguai accused one another of disgraceful immorality and incapacity for the enterprize entrusted to them by the King. Ambition, as we gather from these books, overcame in them all feelings of honour and duty; and violence, sedition, perfidy, and bloodshed, were the means by which they sought to attain their ends.

The publication of these recriminations in Protestant Europe, which looked on with fear at the growth of the power of Spain by her conquests in the Indies, was a natural incentive to those who groaned under her yoke. Having no periodical press, they availed themselves of the narratives of voyages, which were awakening curiosity with respect to countries that had fallen under her dominion. Everything for them was new and wonderful. The unknown races, their primitive customs, their savage life, their nakedness, their arms and food, the virgin nature and splendid vegetation of the tropics, the fruits and new animals, the game and fish, differing from those in the old world, all excited the imagination, and, at the same time, opened a vast field for censure, and for inciting the multitude against the enemy who was taking possession with such admirable ease of the new lands which raised the enthusiasm of the first discoverer to such a pitch that he believed they had contained the earthly Paradise.

How could they help devouring with avidity "the veritable historie and description of a country belonging to the wild, naked, savage, man-eating people", narrated by Hans Stade, who had been their captive? How could they fail to be interested in "the true and agreeable description of some Indian lands and islands which have not been recorded in former chronicles", by one who, like Schmidt, had first explored them "amid great danger"?

It seems to me impossible that in the class of people to which Schmidt and Stade belonged, there should have been found men capable of writing narratives, though of scant literary merit. The art of writing was very uncommon in the middle of the sixteenth century. We know by whom Stade's work was prepared; but we have not the same information with regard to that of Schmidt, though there can be no doubt that both were written, not by those who appear as their authors, but by more learned persons, enemies to the Spanish Government,[7] upon data recorded, badly or well, by the adventurers themselves, and from what they heard from their travelling companions.

[7] Navarrete, _Coleccion de los Viajes y descubrimientos que hicieron por mar los Españoles desde fines del Siglo XV_. Introduccion; Ilustracion 9.

The memory cannot retain for a long time names, and especially foreign names, and details of events happening in the midst of grave anxieties and dangers. For this reason Schmidt and Stade, who could not have taken notes at the time, ran into such great errors, that it is impossible to correct them with accuracy. The Castilian language is difficult to pronounce for men of Northern Europe, and much more is this the case with the Guaraní, which abounds with vowels and inarticulate sounds, with an accent at times guttural, at others nasal, or both combined. The Spanish Jesuit missionaries found themselves obliged to invent signs to represent these sounds. Nevertheless, there are words which, although pronounced in accordance with these signs, are now unintelligible to the natives.

It seems to me beyond all doubt that Guaraní was the general language of the whole of America to the east of the Cordillera of the Andes, from the sea of the Antilles to the extreme south of the continent. There were various dialects, as might be expected in a language without a literature, spoken by tribes living apart and hostile to one another. Traces of it occur north of the Amazon, as well as in the pampas of Argentina, and especially in Paraguai and in Guaira, the chief centre of the race in the days of the Spanish conquest. In Paraguai and its immediate vicinity the tongue spoken is nearly as pure as in the time of the Spanish missionaries Anchieta and Ruiz de Montoya, who wrote the vocabulary, and tried to adapt the language to grammatical principles and rules.

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In the numerous notes I have placed at the foot of the pages, I have corrected the errors of Guaraní nomenclature committed by Schmidt, whenever they bear some resemblance to the true names of tribes and places referred to. Some errors were noticed by L. Hulsius (or Hulse) in 1599, who indicated those of well-known places and names, which in the first German edition appeared disfigured. For instance, "Demerieffe" for "Tenerife", and "Petrus Manchossa" for "Don Pedro de Mendoza". But neither Hulsius nor the other editors could correct them accurately, because they did not know a single word of the language of the natives, nor of that of their Spanish conquerors. These errors are still greater in the Latin version from which the Spanish and other translations were made.

The errors of Schmidt went so far in names of persons that he did not write correctly those of his chiefs, not even that of Domingo Martinez de Irala, under whose immediate orders he served for twenty years. Schmidt repeatedly insists on naming him Martino Domingo de Eyollas. Another of his chiefs was Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca, whom he always names Abernunzo Cabessa de Bacha. The most curious thing is, that the editors who attempted to correct these errors, were not free from similar faults; even M. Camus,[8] who, in correcting that of Cabeza de Vaca, rendered it by Alvare Nugnez Cabera di Vacha; and M. Ternaux Compans, who supposed the settlement named "Duechkamin" by Schmidt, to be Tucuman,[9] because he did not know that neither the city nor the province of this name were founded at the moment to which he is referring.

[8] _Mémoire sur la Collection des Grands et Petits Voyages_, par A. G. Camus, 1802.

[9] _Voyages, Relations et Mémoires originaux pour servir à l'histoire de la découverte de l'Amérique, etc._, vol. v.

I believe that in my notes I have removed all these blunders, leaving some of them as they are, because they are incomprehensible and have no importance for history or geography.

In all this, and in chronology, the work of Schmidt is extremely defective, so much so, that I am unable to understand how the Spanish geographer Azara, recommending the merits of this adventurer, should have affirmed the following enormity in his _Voyages dans l'Amérique Méridionale_:--"Je fais grand cas de ce petit ouvrage, à cause de son impartialité et de l'exactitude des distances et des situations, choses en quoi personne ne l'égale."[10] I do not accept this judgment, and in my notes and observations the reader will see if I have good reason for differing from Azara, whose merits I recognise, as I also know his grave faults.

[10] _Voyages dans l'Amérique Méridionale_, par Don Felix Azara; Paris, 1809; Introduction, p. 20.

Azara is one of the few who deny that the country was inhabited by a multitude of various nations, as many writers have asserted, and nevertheless enumerates and describes no less than thirty-two nations and more than fifty tribes. I maintain there was only one nation, the Guaraní; and in the province of La Plata, described by Alvar Nuñez and by Schmidt, the Guaranís were divided into twenty-one tribes, who differed only in their habits, or their arms, or in the nature of the country inhabited by them. These are the tribes entered on my ethnographical map. The others, mentioned by the writers in question, would be merely unimportant groups, designated by the name of their chief, or by some nickname applied to them by their neighbours or enemies. The tribes I record are the following: Quîrandís, Chanás, Charuas, Yarós, Arechanés, Minhuános, Timbús, Tobas, Mocobís or Mbocoys, Abipones, Agaces, Mepenes, Mbaiás, Payaguás, Guaicurús, Cheriguanos, Xarayos, Itatines, Guatós, Cariyós, Tapiis; all these are Guaranís. I do not treat of the other principal tribes, situated in the interior of the country between Paraná and the Andes, because they do not concern the narratives of Schmidt and Alvar Nuñez.

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